She's Just Gone - A Bethyl Prompt story
by Hearts1989
Summary: A one shot turned full length fic. Daryl knows his heart was ripped away just the same way Beth was, in the night when he let his guard down. He also knows he has to get her back. Beth can't think too hard on getting back to them all, Daryl most of all. Being apart from him is the hardest thing she's ever had to endure. She just has to survive.
1. Chapter 1

Prompt from ultrablondie, walkingdeadlover38.

Daryl could not explain to anyone how he felt sitting here with everyone, finally reunited with all of their prison family. He should be happy but he wasn't. They were talking about moving on to the Alexandria Safe Zone so they could get Eugene there to explain how this all started and what needed to be done to set the world back on its axis again.

Daryl honestly thought that the guy was full of shit but he didn't say anything. He actually said very little these days. He had been happy to be back with the group, except for one thing. Beth. The one person he cared most about in the entire world was not there.

_She's just gone. _

He had run after that car with the cross on the back the entire night. He had never run farther or faster than he had that night into the next morning. When he had collapsed at that crossroads, all life had gone out of him.

_You're gonna be the last man standing. _

Except he wasn't. He had been _sitting_ in the middle of the road, legs feeling like rubber, heart thundering in his chest, head splitting open from exhaustion and he had collapsed to the ground, his knees buckling and giving way. His body had met pavement before he had time to think that he should be standing up, walking, running into the night and the next day, still looking for her. If Joe's guys hadn't found him, he would probably still be sitting there waiting for the next herd of walkers to come by and just throw himself into it. That's what had been going through his mind. He didn't know where else to look, had run out of options.

Until last week, six days ago, when he had spotted another car with a white cross in the back window. He had chased that car too, except this time he had commandeered a car sitting at Terminus, the place they had left then. But he had chased the car straight on until nightfall until he lost it. He rubbed his fingers over his left hand, feeling the throb from the contusions where he had punched the steering wheel and dashboard when he had lost sight of the car. Again.

He had gone out every single day to look for Beth. And they let him. He just hoped they would hold off on going to the safe zone for a while longer. Because no way in hell was he going to leave the state without finding her. He had always thought that the worst thing would be to find her dead or worse, turned into one of them. One of the walking dead, rotting flesh and putrid breath, death growls ripping up from her throat, stumbling around, the light in her bright blue eyes having gone out. But whatever he had thought about losing his shit if he found her dead or turned, it could not compare to the thought that nagged his brain every day and pounded his thoughts into the ground every night.

Not finding her at all would be the worst thing fate could throw at him. Because that was what was killing him. Not knowing what happened to her. How she had come to get in that car. Who she was with. Were they treating her well? Was she hurt or sick? Who was taking care of her, protecting her? Who was going to wrap her ankle for her when it ached? Who was going to make sure she ate? These are the things that kept him awake at night. And when he was lucky enough to catch some sleep, they were the thoughts that crept into his dreams, giving him nightmares.

Rick had woken him up several times when he was in the throes of a nightmare, afraid he would draw a herd upon them while they all tried to catch any snippet of sleep they could. Sleep was a precious commodity in this world, almost as rare as food. Lately he had taken to signing up for more than his share of watch. Somehow his brain had convinced his body that he didn't need sleep. He just needed Beth; he would sleep when he found her. Because he was going to find her. He had too.

_Everyone we know is dead. _

_You don't know that. _

She was right. Except she didn't know that. He did. They were all alive. Every single one. And it killed him. When he had walked in that train car, there had been a part of him that, even though he knew they were in deep shit, wished she was there too. Then she would have seen that she had been right. And that was one serving of I told you so that he would gladly accept because he had deserved it. She had faith when he had none. She had hope and she had passed that on to him.

_Wouldn't kill you to have a little faith. _

She had enough faith for all of them. Would she still have it when he found her? Or would she be forever changed, no longer the Beth Greene that he had gotten to know so well. The Beth that had fought beside him, felling walkers with the best of them. He wished he could tell all of them, Rick, Maggie, Michonne just how strong she had gotten. It's the only thing that kept him going now.

For the first week after she disappeared, he had been so pissed at her for tempting fate with that statement. For being right. But then that was Beth's way. She was so sure of herself, so sure of her beliefs that he just knew now eventually whatever she spouted as gospel would eventually come to be true. She had been right about their family being alive.

He thought back to the night she disappeared when everything he had been feeling for her had bubbled to the surface.

_So you do think there's still good people. What changed your mind? _

You did, Beth. You. That's what he was trying to tell her. He thought if he looked at her long enough, looked right into her eyes and let her see all that he was feeling, she'd eventually read his mind and just know. With her unfailing faith and glass half full attitude, she would just know. Wherever she was, he hoped she knew that she had changed him. Changed him for the better. And he would give anything to get her back.

He rubbed his hand over his face. He had watch the night before and he was getting ready to go out and look for her again, track the last car that he had seen. They were getting closer to finding her; he could feel it. Carol went with him sometimes. She had asked a few non-obtrusive questions which he had answered.

Do you love her?

He had looked at her then, his eyes filling up with tears because he knew. Fuck, he knew it. He did. But he didn't get a chance to tell her. And he wasn't about to tell anyone else if he couldn't tell her first. She should know first damn it. Because hell yes he loved her. He didn't know what the feeling was when it kept creeping up, making him do the craziest things he would have never dreamed he would do for anyone else. He just had to be close to her, had to touch her, and he had wanted to kiss her so bad. He didn't know when he had stopped thinking of her as little Beth Greene, Hershel's youngest daughter, to thinking of her as his. Just his. Because that's what he wanted. Beth to be his girl. He couldn't imagine being with anyone else but she had made him feel more things in those few weeks they spent together, alone than he had in the rest of his sorry miserable life. Before he met Beth, he had been just existing, surviving but he knew it then. He wasn't living.

_If you don't have hope, what's the point of living. _

She had taught him that too. So he was going to hope. He was going to have faith. He was going to be the last man standing. Until he wasn't. He was going to do all the things that she had taught him. He was never going to give up on finding her. Because he had to. That was all there was to it.

He was standing in the church and looking around at everyone paired up, early morning hours, everyone just waking up. Glenn and Maggie were giggling and whispering quietly to one another from the corner they had claimed the night before. Sasha and Bob were talking quietly, Sasha picking at the corner of her sleeping bag. He had seen the change in them as soon they had reunited. Something had happened to them on their journey back to their prison family. Even Michonne and Rick seemed different. They always seemed to have their heads bent together now, talking about Carl or Lil Ass Kicker. It seemed that everyone in their group had another half. Except for him. And it left him feeling incomplete, broken.

He threw his bow onto his back and the door to the church swung open slamming on the wall behind it and he drew his bow up quickly only to have his jaw drop open and he dropped the bow to the floor, his feet seemingly rooted to the spot.

"Beth?" It was a plea, the hope warring with disbelief and winning. Because that's what she had taught him. To hope.

And now it was all worth it as he saw her standing in the doorway to the church, hair gently tumbling about her shoulders and the sun behind her, bright and blinding, reflecting impossible light against her blonde hair. He went running towards her then, just took off at a sprint to the doors of the church and when he got there, ready to pull her into his arms, she was gone.

_Is she dead? _

_She's just gone. _

He looked around wildly and ran out into the courtyard of the church, searching for her. She just had to be here somewhere because who had opened the door. The wind was whipping about him, blowing his hair, the strands too-long covering his eyes and obstructing his vision. He pushed his hair back, frustrated and anguished. He turned in a half circle, thinking he might have missed her. She was just a little slip of a thing and she could easily be missed if she had entered the church and changed her mind.

But as he turned around and around, he fell to the sidewalk, the pavement delivering a blow to his backside and he didn't much care. He hadn't found her after all. She was gone. She was gone forever and he was never going to be okay again. The tears that had threatened him since she had disappeared into the night finally demanded release from the prison he'd kept them in. Locked away in his heart, saved for a day when he could handle it. He really didn't figure this was that day either, but it didn't change the fact that he now had tears streaming down his face.

He heard a keening sound that reminded him of a wounded fox he had seen caught in a trap once. He looked around to see if he had somehow missed a few walkers and someone went down. But it was just him. When he heard the sound the second time, he was horrified to realize that it was him. His heart felt like it had been ripped from his chest. She had been a vision, a hallucination, a trick of the mind. And he just couldn't. Not anymore. He wanted to melt into the pavement and be nothing again.

Know what I was before all this. I was nobody. Nothin'.

He didn't know how long he sat there on the sidewalk of the courtyard, sobbing, the cries no longer held in. Just letting it go.

"I miss her too," Carl said carefully as he approached him and sat down next to him on the pavement.

Some of the others had come to the doorway of the church, his outburst having drawn attention. He wished they would go back inside. He turned to look at Carl, curious as to why he was not with them.

"When my mom died, she was the first person to comfort me. I felt like she knew how I felt. Because her mom died too, ya know?" Daryl saw him eyeballing him carefully as if he might snap at any moment and the truth of it was that he didn't have the energy to snap anymore. All his energies were poured into finding Beth.

Daryl didn't say anything for a long minute. He didn't have to wonder how Carl knew what was happening. They all knew. He had told Rick and he knew he must have said something to Maggie because she often sent him looks, but looked afraid to approach him. And he honestly didn't want to talk about it with any of them.

Except that Carl had come out here to check on him and in looking at the kid, it looked like he might need someone to talk to more than he himself did. And even though he was loathe to admit it, he needed to tell someone what she meant to him. Maybe not saying those words but maybe if he told someone, it would make it real. Something that didn't just exist solely in his head. He was so tired. He wanted to find her. He needed to find her. He sobbed again, the tears just kept coming. He wasn't sure there was a big enough dam to restrain all the tears he had been holding back since she was taken from him.

"When we got out together, I wasn't nice to her." Daryl admitted, looking sideways at the kid.

"No offense, Daryl, but sometimes you're not nice to anyone," Carl said, adding quickly, "but it's okay. We all know you miss her. Want her back." Carl finished quietly.

"Back at the prison, I killed that guy, I felt myself slipping away to a dark place. Beth pulled me back." He said, his legs crossed in front of him. "She's my friend. I want her back too. But Daryl, ya gotta remember."

"Remember what?" Daryl looked at the kid, wondering when the hell he had grown up so much. When they'd met, he had been this scrawny little thing, never where he was supposed to be. He had changed when his mom died. And he supposed he had changed again. They all had. They had all evolved so much from what they were when they had become family back at the farm, a bond forged together from broken homes, broken lives and broken will. And right now he was about as broken as he had ever been. Where was Beth to put him back together?

Carl looked at him for a long minute before finally answering. "We're going to find her. Or she'll find us, who knows", he paused. "But you have to have faith. She wouldn't want you doing this to yourself." He was right, he knew it.

"We all got jobs to do, right?" Carl looked at him carefully, his hair even shaggier than his own.

_We've got jobs to do. We don't get to be upset. _

It's what she always said, her Daddy's words coming out reeling them all back in when it felt they had been cast too far out into the inhumanity of this hell on earth they were living.

Daryl looked to Carl again, his long hair shaggy in his face, just like his. If Beth were there, she'd sit both of them down and cut it. He had never cared about his looks before. Had never cared about getting timely haircuts, shaving the scruff on his face. But Beth made him want all those things because he knew those were things she cared about.

Daryl looked at Carl, a little confused by his last statement. "I'm doing my job." Daryl took watch nearly every night and if they were to eat meat, he was usually the one bringing it in.

"Not that kind of job. Right now, your job is to go sleep. I'll get Dad to find someone to cover your shift. You might have fooled everyone else but I see how little sleep. I see how hard you work. But you have to sleep. How do you expect to find her, if you're exhausted?" The kid was wise, he'd give him that.

"You've got balls kid." He sighed.

He wondered again when the kid had become so wise. He figured the world now did that to a person. Made ya grow up way the hell before ya were ready. Made ya think how all the things you never thought you'd do, you would. If it meant staying alive. And if it meant getting Beth back, he would walk across this hell of an earth to do so. Because she was all that mattered. Having her back was all that mattered and he could spend the rest of his life, whatever time he had left, making sure she never disappeared again.

_Is she dead? _

_She's just gone. _

As he walked back into the church, claiming the far wall, saying nothing to no one. He laid down on his sleep roll and closed his eyes, trying to force out all the bad thoughts and concentrate on the good. The good that she insisted was still there, they just had to look for it. God, he missed her. He missed the way she called him out on his shit. The way she never backed down from him and put him in his place. Made him think differently. He missed touching her, holding her in his arms, even if it was just a ruse hurrying her along to their redneck brunch. A ploy to feel her soft skin beneath the roughness of his fingers. He just simply missed her and all the hope that she embodied.

_You're gonna miss me so bad when I'm gone, Daryl Dixon. _

He wasn't angry anymore about her statement. He just knew it was true. He missed her more than he ever thought he would. And if he ever got the chance he was going to tell her. He was going to tell her everything. And never look back.

AN - this story would not have been possible without capncreature (tumblr) / wretchedwonderland ( ) who helped me channel my inner Carl. Thanks! ;)


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

She's Just Gone – Part II

_Don't I feel like something when you're here. _

_Don't I feel my lungs losing air. _

_Don't I feel like I can show you. _

_I'm the one that you can go to _

_When you need another heartbeat near. _

_Don't I feel like something when you're here._ – When You're Here by John Fullbright

Daryl had figured several days ago that there was two of him. There was the Daryl who went out hunting every day and provided whatever meat he could find or trap. The one who protected everyone in their camp from either walkers or worse than the dead, the ones who thought they could profit from the end of the world. That Daryl was also the Daryl that made sure everyone had everything that they needed to survive in their camp, where there were holed up in a church for the time being, just until they regrouped.

Then there was the other Daryl. This identity only had one job, one sole purpose for breathin'. This Daryl was the one who looked for Beth. Day in and day out and well into the night sometimes, much to the worry and chagrin of everyone else. But he figured he'd taken care of himself before the world had gone to shit and he could do it now too, only maybe better. This Daryl, in his mind, was the only one who mattered.

Ever since his breakdown or whatever the hell they called shit like what he had experienced nowadays, they had been watching him carefully, especially Maggie. He could tell that she wanted to ask him what was going on with him and her sister, but she was too afraid to ask. Carl was right; he was downright unapproachable these days. And he found that he wasn't even sorry that he was. He figured that he didn't need to be civil because his heart felt anything but that. It felt a lot like it had been ripped out of his chest in the most inhumane fashion, leaving a gaping hole where the heartbeats of how much he loves Beth used to be. Now there was just a hollow rhythm that echoed horribly in his head whenever he was alone which was nearly all the time; a self-imposed exile for losing her. For losing the best goddamn thing that had ever happened to him, either 'fore or since the dead started to walk among them.

He was out this morning checking the traps and had found two rabbits so far. He had ventured out a little further, trying for a couple of squirrels. He had been about to give up when he came across it. A wild turkey, a little skinny for his likin' but it would do. He soundlessly got into position and aimed, letting a bolt fly and barely felt a surge of satisfaction. It was just the way it was now. He either got it or he didn't. He either found dinner or he didn't. He either found Beth or he didn't.

He never allowed his mind to think anymore that he might not ever find her. Those were thoughts that put him on the ledge of his crazy thoughts, thinking that maybe it wasn't any point in moving one more step if she wasn't in the world anymore. He had forgotten a long time ago what it felt like to not need Beth Greene. It seemed like it's all it had ever been for him, wanting her, loving her, and longing to hold her. Ever since she had looked at him and said what she said, he was lost. He had never looked at her the same way since.

"_Let's burn it down." _

Burn down the house that reminded him of his old man, reminded him of a childhood he had barely scraped his way out of, reminded him of a mama who didn't care enough about her own life or the ones she was supposed to love to not forget that you couldn't smoke while you were laying in bed. She'd said like it was the most natural thing in the world, like it should come to him like breathing. And that was the thing. In that moment, it was the moment of clarity for him, the moment when he ceased to take another full breath in her presence. Now that she was gone, he couldn't breathe at all. He felt it like a weight.

She's just gone.

She's just gone.

She's just gone.

Dragging him down, deep down into an airless space that he knew if he stayed there too long, he could just cease to be. Without Beth, it would be much easier. But there was one thing that kept him going and it was the fact that if she was there, listening in on his thoughts or watching him as he relentlessly tried to find her every day, she would be on him like she always had been, always calling him out on all his bullshit. She's the only one that could do and it live. She's the only one who ever would.

He made his way stealthily back finally and broke through the trees to the back yard of the church they had stumbled upon soon after leaving Terminus. He didn't even allow his mind to wander back to those dark couple of days. Seemed like since they left the prison, it was the only thing that kept happening to them. Dark days, some of the darkest in his existence.

He comes into full view of the doors of the church and they are laid open and for a moment before he sees everyone standing around the door, he fears that they have all gone. He is scared for a moment when he fears too that they aren't all gone and he will have to continue another day this ruse that he's pretending to be alive. That his heart isn't gone with her.

And then he sees them standing around someone in the door. The way the sun has come up there is a brightness shining towards the doors of the church, a ray of light breaking through the trees in just the right way that, for a moment, he stops and he drops the line that holds the turkey and the rabbits he found in the traps. He blinks and picks them back up and blinks again, sure that he is hallucinating. Again. And he doesn't think he can go through what he went through that morning. He moves until he is yards away and their whole group parts so he can see better and there is she is, standing in the doorway of the church and everyone had been talking to her. Blue shirt and blue pants, which remind him something like hospital scrubs and her hair, as bright as he remembered it, is pulled back from her face but her braid is gone now. She has a cut on the left side of her face and her right forearm is wrapped up crudely in a bandage. He sees all this but he can only reconcile one thought. She's alive.

He can hear Tyreese and Carol and Glenn and they're saying something about a hospital and she was running from it when they found her, but he doesn't care. All he sees is her.

He looks to his left and he sees Carl who has the first smile on his face since they had come out of Terminus, since that fucker tried what he had tried to do to Carl while the rest of them had stood by, feeling helpless, until they weren't. But Carl is smiling now and he's nodding at him and Daryl is sure when he looks back to the doorway he won't see her and in a way, he's right. Because she's not standing there any longer. She is coming towards him.

He looks away from Carl one last time, hears him say, "You're not dreamin' this time Daryl. She's really here."

And they all wander away, no one saying a word and then she is there right in front of him. And he doesn't even hesitate. He can feel the dampness on his face as he drops to his knees, his crossbow feeling oddly heavy on his back now that the other weight has lifted, the one that held him to this earth while she was gone. He buries his face into her and she winds her fingers through his hair and he knows then that he didn't imagine all this. That he didn't dream _this_ up. That they had something special and he wasn't the only one that felt it.

"Daryl." Her voice is the sweetest thing he's ever heard and it's changed some. Gone is some of the lilt that was in it. It's sweet still, but different.

He looks back up at her when she says his name and he still can't breathe and he doesn't understand it. He had thought when he got her back that he could breathe again but this is air deprivation of a different kind. He feels it all, feels his heart warming, swelling.

They move into the church, it having been emptied out of everyone and he's not sure where everyone has gone, he's just glad that they have these moments alone so he can let her know. So he can tell her everything he has thought since she was ripped away from him. Everything he has felt. Because he swore he would. Because he made a deal with god and the devil and wished on every star he saw in the dark expanse of sky, feeling the space beside him where she should have been.

They sit on far wall of the church where his sleep roll is and he asks her the most important thing first. "Are you okay?" That's the thing that has kept him awake most nights. Wondering if she was alright. If she was safe.

"I'm okay, Daryl. It was hard. And you were right. About the good ones not surviving." He looks up at her sharply then and her smile has gone from her face. When she had been trying to convince him there were still good people and he had finally believed it, she had smiled at him, that 1000 watt smile that he knew could light up half of Georgia. But she wasn't smiling now.

He fights the urge to pull her against him and instead says, "No I was wrong, Beth." She is staring at him and he meets those beautiful blue-green eyes and he tries it out, being brave with her. And it feels strange. But good. Because it's a relief to finally tell her what he'd been trying to tell her all those weeks ago at that kitchen table when they'd been interrupted after her "Oh".

She shakes her head and he reaches out then, unable to stop himself now that he had started talking. He brings his hand up, cupping her cheek and rubbing his thumb over her jaw and he feels his hand shaking as he does so and she brings her hand up and for one long horrible moment he thinks she might move his hand. Instead, she places her hand over the back of his hand and holds it in place, closing her eyes briefly before looking at him again.

"You asked me a question and I didn't get to answer ya," he said and she nodded and he moved his hand and her hand followed. He laced their fingers together and sighed before continuing, letting their hands rest in his lap.

"I took the easy way out. Tryin' to make you guess because I was too scared to say what I felt. But you changed my mind Beth." He looked up at her then and then back to their joined hands and he was sure then, in that moment that this was real and it helped him go on.

He reached over for his crossbow and hands it to her, pointing to the handle where the marks are, deeply etched into the teak wood there. He watched her with her free hand trace over the tally marks and looks back up at him, her brows knit together. "Fifty-seven? What does it mean?" She tilts her head at him and he notices then that her ponytail is longer, her hair has grown.

"Fifty seven marks. One for every day you weren't beside me." He said, the air leaving his lungs suddenly with his lasts word and he watches her. Watches her eyes go wide and look up from where she has been tracing the lines he painstakingly carved into the wood every single night and meet his eyes and for once, he doesn't look away and lets her see. Lets her see all of it. How much he loves her. How much he missed her. Fifty seven marks, one for every day he didn't know where she was. For every day he didn't know if she was hungry. One for every night he tried to close his eyes to sleep, seeing instead the image of taillights fading into the night, burned into the back of his mind.

"You were right in something else too." He says as the tears have started falling from her eyes and she's crying and he would feel bad if he didn't know for a fact that they were happy tears for her. She was smiling through them.

"I'm right twice in one day, Mr. Dixon?" She teases and they both laugh. It's just one of many private jokes he knows they will share now.

"Yes, Greene, stick around long enough and I'm sure I'll be tellin' you that again ". He's brave but he figures that's what love does to you. Gives you courage where before you had none. And his heart skips a beat at that and he waits one beat before he adds, "If that's what you want." He looks at her then, his heart feeling shy but his words bold like he has never been able to be before and he figures it must be her. The way she always draws him out. Always has. Figures she always will.

She nods at him furiously and that's the point that he feels the tears behind his eyes, demanding attention, to be released. "Of course I do," she whispers and though he never hoped for it, never even thought he could try it with the way he was laying his feelings all out for all the world to see and stomp on if they saw fit, she leans towards him and their lips meet in the only kiss that has ever mattered, would ever matter to him.

Without even opening his eyes, he moves his crossbow from her lap and tosses it to the side as she instinctively drapes her legs across his lap and angles her head up at his as she winds her arms up around his neck. She opens her lips under his and he is lost. Lost in the moment, lost in the kiss, lost in her. And he hopes it's the first of many moments like this when he can lose himself in all that is Beth. If he has any say so about it, it will be a daily activity.

They finally pull apart and he leans his forehead against hers and he hears her trying to ask him something.

"You were going to tell me I was right, remember?" Beth pulled back at him, giving him one of her saucy looks, one of the ones he missed so much.

"Yes ma'am, I was," He says and her kisses have made him even more brave, braver than even he thought he would be. "I did miss you." He looks at her and she smiles at him.

"I know. I missed you too." She reaches over and pulls his bow back towards them. "I can't believe you carved up your bow." She marveled as she fingered the bolts already loaded and ready to go.

"It was the only thing I could think of that I was takin' with me from place to place." Beth chuckled then and he grinned at her.

"Guess I shouldn't be surprised," she teased. "You don't go anywhere without it." She looked up at him, rather pleased with herself.

"Well now there's two things I'll never go anywhere without." He says, looking at her pointedly knowing he has never seen anything more beautiful than Beth Greene sitting in his lap, looking freshly and thoroughly kissed. By him.

"What's the other thing?" she says, smiling up at him lazily and he thinks then that she is perfect. Knows she is too perfect for him, but doesn't care. Because he's already worked all this out. Knows all the reasons why he shouldn't want her, but only caring about the reason that makes it okay and he tells her then.

"It's you, Beth." He whispers and presses a kiss to her forehead. "I don't ever want to be without you again. I love you." The admission has tumbled out past his lips and hangs in the air between them but only in the space of a moment before she reaches up, curling her fingers around the lapel of his jacket, tangling into his hair there, pressing her lips to his and feels her tongue probing at his lips and he opens his mouth for her and he knows it was worth it. Worth going out every day, risking his health, his life, his sanity, in trying to find her. It was worth every sleepless night. Every moment he worried about her.

She pulls away this time and her eyes meet his. "I love you too, Daryl." She looks over to his bow then. "You'll never need to put another mark on it again," her voice hitches here but she continues. "You'll never need to because the only place I want to be is right next to you."

He looks at her and he knows that even in his dreams and his fantasies where he has tried to construct this moment in his mind, it is nothing compared to the reality he is experiencing now. He had never thought that he could really have this. That he could have her and yet here they were, laying it all out there. Baring their souls just like they had not long ago in a ramshackle cabin in woods just like the ones that lay beyond the church they now sat in.

They had burned down their past that night, ashes giving way to something beautiful, something theirs. And though they had been to hell and back since then, their separation a fire and brimstone all its own, they had come out the other side stronger, surer. He knew he'd spend a lifetime trying to figure out why she chose him.

Before the end of the world, he had been nobody, nothing. But with Beth in his arms, he felt like something. He felt like somebody, like she had pulled what was left of him, all the good parts that had risen up from the ashes of that moonshine cabin, and had molded him into the man that he supposed to be. Into the man he wanted to be for her. As he held her against him, breathing her in, he knew if it took forever to show her how much he loved her for it, then so be it. Forever just happened to be all the time he had.

This is part two of the She's Just Gone mini-fiction. It started as a prompt but kind of morphed into a life of its own. A third part is in the works but it depends on what people think of this one I suppose. Hope you like this. If you like this, feel free to wander over to at my profile Hearts1989 for a look at some of my other Bethyl works. Thanks as always for reading. I appreciate it so much!


	3. Chapter 3

**Well here it is finally. This is the third installment where we see where Beth was and what she thought all that time away from Daryl. More notes at the end. **

Beth Greene had never really felt like she had fit in quite anywhere but only because of the status that people placed on her, using possessive words like she was a thing, a prize, an appendage of someone else or some other life. She was never Elizabeth Greene. She was always Beth Greene, Hershel's daughter. Beth Greene, Maggie's or Shawn's baby sister. Later she would become Beth Greene, high school cheerleader or that's Beth, Jimmy's girlfriend.

She had always wanted to be her own person but no one would let her. Even after her dear sweet mama came out of that barn, lips snarling, teeth gnashing, she Beth Greene, Annette's daughter and oh look at her, poor little thing, she's just gonna collapse. And Beth would be the first to tell you that you might have been right about that. That she just might collapse under the stink and rot of her mother's death and the guttural moans and cries of her second death at the hands of someone kinder than herself because if she'd had her way, she'd keep her mama that way for the end of time.

After all, having a monster for a mother was surely better than never having a mother again. Her heart still ached with it; the loss of her mama that hot summer day in the middle of the end of the world and the beginning of the rest of her life. It was messed up how her brain got it confused sometimes. That life before the turn hadn't really been a life at all. She couldn't even hardly remember it all now. It all seemed so insignificant in the grand scheme of things.

When she'd stumbled towards the front of the barn where her mother lay, shot by none other than Daryl Dixon, she had wanted to do something, _anything_, to keep it all from happening. Her mama had always soothed away all the hurts, kissed away the tears. Beth was sixteen now and she had long since given up the ideal of needing a mama to love away all the bad in the world and now that the worst of the world seemed to have seeded itself inside her mama and she was among those that sought to devour the flesh of those that remained, she thought maybe her mama needed a healing touch. It was a ridiculous thought that a Band-Aid could fix all that was wrong with this screwed up situation but she thought it all the same. Because it was as screwed as anything could be when she knelt down, scalding tears falling into the red clay dirt outside that barn that housed all the sick they had gathered. Gathered for a cure that was never to come. For redemption that would never be found. Yes it was a screwed up thing that her mama lay there lifeless. Until she wasn't.

Perhaps the keening sound she heard was coming from the deep recesses of her mother; that there was some piece of her still in there that loved Beth and would not hurt her and certainly would never want to rip the flesh from the same cheeks she had kissed as a baby. Surely she would never want to bite off the hand that she had held on the first day of kindergarten.

As her mother had gripped her head, decayed fingers clawing at her hair, her fetid breath burned Beth's nostrils, she had a thought then that she would just let her mama do what she so desired. Beth could throw herself into the bad and never again have to worry about it catching up with her like it just had. Let her mother bite her and she could get the fever too, but they stopped it before it got that far. Then she knew. She knew that the keening sound was not from her mother. It was from Beth herself. Daddy was wrong. He was so wrong and she thought that was screwed up too. They had lied to her; all of them. Mama was never getting better from this. No one was getting better from this.

She knew it. She'd heard it in Sunday school week after week that the end was coming. This was certainly the end. She understood that. But what she did not understand was why she was still here. Why was she still here when all her teachers in month after month of Sundays had told her that she would not be here at the end? She was a good Christian girl. She obeyed her parents. She did her homework. She said her prayers and did her chores and she never let Jimmy's hands stray too far up the inside of one thigh, even though her body ached with the need to let him just do it.

Yet here they were at the end of the world and here was Beth Greene, fighting for her identity once again. She was no longer Beth Greene, Annette's daughter. Now she was just nobody and she wanted to be less than that.

When she had first thought it, that she would end her life, she had thought she would feel shame. In taking the coward's way out. That's what they always called it. But in that moment, she had never felt more brave, more courageous. Was she scared to go? She didn't know, but she was even more afraid of escaping out into the night, fire chasing them down with the walkers just ahead of the flames. She didn't want to be gutted. No one wanted that. But the feeling she had when she saw her mother walking out of that barn, dragging her leg behind her like some macabre horror flick it had felt like all the viscera had been pulled from her body anyway, a series of jagged gashes having leaked out all the feeling inside her.

If she felt she was nothing then, she definitely felt less than nothing when she dragged that shard of broken mirror over her wrist. As soon as she saw the first drop of blood she had felt a sense of peace, of calm and then all the sudden it was all too much blood and it was all too real.

Later she would be glad that she had changed her mind. That she had decided that she wanted to live. It was the Greene perseverance. It's what her Daddy always called it. That tip of a chin and set of a jaw, chest swelling up and of course that stance. She'd gotten her way on more than occasion with the family trait that would go and eventually save her life. Again and again, it would do that.

At the prison, she found a new niche for herself. She came to care for the Grimes baby. Daryl called her Little Ass-Kicker. The baby's father called her Judith. Carl called her Judy. Beth just called the little girl _hers_. She wrapped her whole self up in that baby girl, her sweet coos soothing Beth's wounded soul. Even her cries were a balm to the deep wounds of Beth's heart. Because she knew in hearing those cries, she could rectify the wrong in that little girl's tiny world and maybe somehow it might right all the wrongs inside Beth's head.

She knew she presented a good front to most up to that point but it was mostly because she felt like Lori really needed somebody. Where once she had questioned Lori for the wisdom of bringing a child into this godforsaken place they called life, she was now glad. But she couldn't fault her, not really, not with the way she looked at her husband like she wished she could erase all the bad that had happened to them and all the bad that Lori herself had brought upon them by laying with a man who was not her husband even if she did believe him to be dead. She had judged her at first but then Beth came to understand that grief would make you do the strangest things, like trying to kill yourself with a bathroom mirror. Or running your fingers over that same scar and remember that you really did want to live even if it did feel your heart was being ripped from your chest.

At the time, Beth didn't see it quite as clearly as she did now but she figured the light had gone out in Lori and Rick's marriage long before the end of the world. Then the end came and they were trapped by circumstances they were powerless to change, swept along in the tide of life. Beth thought it a cruel trick that Lori would die and her baby girl would be left here to fend for herself. It made her angry all over again that God had taken her own mother from her. What kind of god would separate a child from the only love it was really destined to receive? What kind of god would do it again?

The anger was replaced immediately by guilt. Guilt that she could feel something towards a god she was supposed to love, had been taught to revere. She struggled with it but not for long. Holding that little girl she found peace. She found redemption. Quite simply, in Jude, she found herself. So now she was Beth Greene, Jude's mama. They all told her that. Daryl especially. Said she was as much that little girl's mama as her own mama would have been.

After all, he had told her, she was the one staying up nights, singing sweet songs to her when she was cutting those teeth and making sure she got fresh air every day. She was the one making sure she slept with the peace a child should have when she laid down her head at night. He said it was only right that Jude call her mama one day. Beth wasn't sure but his words made her smile all the same.

So the others didn't think she was strong enough for runs. She could kill the walkers behind the fences and that was alright with her. She liked taking care of Jude. That little girl was the light of her life and she was glad every day that she hadn't succeeded in doing the one thing she might have been successful at and ending her life. Thank God, if he was even up there, that she hadn't, otherwise who might be caring for this little girl now?

Well now, in the present time as she laid on her cot looking up at the ceiling, the shadows chasing each other in the dark, Beth had no idea who was caring for her. She had no idea if she was even alive but she shoved that thought back down her throat, letting it fall to churn among all the others she never dealt with, just swept them under the rug with the ever-growing mound of lies she told herself.

They were all alive. That was one lie of many. She had no way of knowing that they were but she wanted to believe they were. Even when she didn't believe it, she wanted to, so willed herself to believe it anyway. That damn Greene perseverance again. She was destined to never sway under its grip and she could only hope that Maggie had managed to somehow hold on because she was the only family member she had left. The governor and his men had made sure that she and Maggie would really and truly be orphans. Her dear sweet Daddy and his unfailing faith in humanity had literally cost him his life. She had mourned his loss or she had tried to as much she could in a situation that was impossible to properly feel anything.

But of all the people she had lost, at the farm or at the prison, there was one that she missed the most. She had once told him, some far yesterday ago, that he was going to miss her so bad when she was gone. She should have known in this screwed up world that she would live to regret those words. She was struck numb sometimes at the ferocity of how badly the situation was reversed. She missed the hell out of _him_.

When they had gotten out together, she had cursed her existence. She had cried and he had been silent. She had yelled and he had just stared at her. She had thought he was the biggest jerk on the planet and he was. He made her angrier than anyone had ever made her. Angry enough to spit nails. Angry enough to want to drink.

That was the driving force that day and she should have known that it would end the way it did; her and Daryl nose to nose each challenging the other on how they hadn't dealt with any of their collective shit. She, with her blind faith, and he with doubt aplenty had traveled along the same road but yet their paths were not the same. Until that day, drinking moonshine that would surely send her to hell as that was how it felt as it licked a path of flames down into her belly. But if that didn't send her to hell then surely standing toe to toe with Daryl Dixon hashing out the consequences of a madman would do it. Surely that would be the death of her. Because it was just simply not done. One did not simply challenge Daryl Dixon to a duel and come out unscathed.

Little did they know that she was not the only one that would end up in tears that day. Little did they know that it was Daryl who would bare his soul for only her to see. That she would chip away the hard exterior of Daryl Dixon and the revealing cracks would sigh and hiss at the release of all the demons that came tumbling out between them.

It's why it had seemed so fitting to her that they burn it all down. Burn down the past. Burn down the demons. Burn down the towering barrier between them until there was nothing left but ashes. They had fled the farm in a sunset blaze backdrop and the smoke and black rain from the prison still stained their souls. But burning down that cabin, a shrine to Daryl's past, no, that was their choice. They did that of their own choosing and it had felt damn good. It had been liberating even and they had flipped the bird at their past and turned their back on it and forged ahead to the future. Their future together.

Looking back, that had been the turning point for Beth and Daryl. He had split his soul wide open and she had seen the good that he had only let some see some of the time. After that night, he let her see it all. He let her see all the good that had been hiding in there waiting to get out all these years. And she had felt like she had really known him and he had known her. She had started to see then that she watched him more often. She had been doing it for a while and she didn't even know why at first. Somehow she'd left her heart back there on that midnight moonshine porch and she wasn't entirely certain but she felt like Daryl might have felt the same way.

It was nothing real tangible or super specific. It was in the light touch at her back when they he was teaching her to track. It was the way he looked at her when he didn't think she knew. But she saw him. Oh she saw him. Saw the deep smolder in his gaze. She sometimes thought the man's eyes communicated volumes where his lips spoke not a word.

His steely gaze could set a fire in her, burning so hot she thought she might ignite from the inside out and the desire would consume her. It had shocked her to her core the first time she had felt it. It was strange to her that him touching something as benign and chaste as her ankle would set off that spark. He had gingerly placed his fingers to the already purpling skin there in the field where she had stupidly stumbled into that trap. It had hurt something fierce but when he touched her ankle it had burned with a different kind of pain. She remembered feeling a little breathless when he had coming rushing over asking if she could move it, his fingers gliding over her. It wasn't like he hadn't touched her before. They had spent countless nights huddled up under what blankets they could find and his skin against hers had never made her feel like she might come unglued if he didn't continue his digital exploration elsewhere.

As soon as he removed his hand, she had stared up at him and thought for sure she had imagined it. She had chastised herself too because she knew that Daryl Dixon would never see her, Beth Greene like that.

When he had carried her piggyback through that cemetery she had felt it again that burn of her most private place pressed against his back and wishing it was pressed against his front instead. It reminded her of Jimmy then; just that feeling that she would get when they were out in the back of her property and his hand was skimming higher and higher under her blouse. She would feel that fire licking up her spine and then push his hand away because she knew it wasn't right. But then, in that cemetery, of all places she had felt it again and if it were Daryl's hand instead of his back she knew she wouldn't push it away but instead thrust herself into that moment and let herself feel all of it. Feel all of Daryl.

The rest of that day had her emotions in a whirl. They had found the bodies, the ones that had turned just like her mama and someone had dressed them up for a funeral. It had made her sad seeing them all laid out like that with no loved ones to come pay their respects. No widow to cry at their graves. Certainly no daughter like her to weep because both her parents were gone now.

But Daryl had made her happy that night when he had asked her to play. It had meant so much to her and she didn't know why she chose the song she did but she couldn't be sorry. Maybe he would hear it and wonder too. Maybe it wasn't all in her head the way he looked at her. The way she could feel his eyes on her now and she knew without even turning her head that his thumb was up to his mouth, absently chewing on the tip. She knew without even glancing his way that his eyes were cutting into her, splaying her open and he could see right into her soul.

But the next day his actions had been even more telling. She had been hobbling along following him to the kitchen and his face was alight with a smile such as she had never seen on him. He had been impatient in his excitement, like a kid on Christmas. And it had made her happy too, seeing as how just a weeks ago, was it that long, she couldn't remember, he had told her that he never got nothing from Santa Claus. So whatever it was that he had done that had him grinning like a kid again she was glad for it. Anything to see his face smile like she'd been wanting him to for so long.

She had giggled when he had scooped her up into his arms, carrying her like a groom did a bride. She had blushed thinking maybe in another life he might. He might pick her up and carry her across the threshold of their house together and take her to their marriage bed and make love to her all night long. That had made her blush under his gaze as he took his seat across from her. Later when the feasted again it did not escape her attention that he had moved his chair to be closer to her as if he had read her secret thoughts to have him close all the time. It was the only thing she was going to get though. She knew it.

She imagined if she wanted anything to happen between them, she was going to have to do it herself but she lacked the nerve. All the fire and rage she had pent up had long since burned out with the final shadowy haze of moonshine, replaced instead by some unknown force that drove her to exist beside this beautiful creature she had been cast out with. But still she remained shy around him, hesitant even. Afraid that the slightest wrong move might make him revert back to the old Daryl, the one who raged and cursed and pissed in the corner of a cabin when he felt threatened by life, by circumstance and the last thing she wanted was for him to be threatened by her or what he might feel for her.

It was odd to her how she came to her true identity. That it took the universe paring down her whole world to one man for her to find that she was just Beth Greene. She was herself and she was comfortable with it. She knew who she was and she was proud of it. She tried to make him see that he was his own person too.

She had told him that she wouldn't need him at all once she got the hang of hunting and tracking. She had thought that was all he had to teach her. She learned how to fend off a few walkers on her own (and she did), figured out how to catch her own kills (she had that down too), and how to track someone with no other clues but tracks in the dirt, broken branches the dozens of other things Daryl had taught her. She had thought that once she knew all he knew or as much as much wisdom he could impart that she would feel like she could be on her own. Beth Greene against the world.

She knew now that she didn't mean a word of it. She couldn't have. Not when it felt this bad being away from him. She may as well have dragged another shard of mirrored glass across her skin only this time she could saw away at the place where her heart used to be. Without Daryl, her world had gone grey. And she worried about him. Was he alive? Did he survive that horde? Was he now walking among the dead just like her mama had?

That thought might haunt her more than most on the nights she couldn't sleep. Then finally, exhausted after all the "operations" she assisted with, she would fall into sleep only to be seized by dreams. In the horrors that she witnessed daily, seeing people of the compound being bitten only to have their arm or leg amputated minutes later, with no anesthesia, these are the things that should have found their way into her dreams. But they never did. The only memories seeping into her dreams each night were of a hunter and his softer than expected touch. His voice as he cried out her name in the kitchen for his Stryker. Him screaming her name as he chased after the car she was carried away in, her consciousness fighting for a grip on reality and then slipping into nothingness.

She had woken up here some three days later, she was told, with a bump on her head and a broken wrist. She had asked for Daryl repeatedly only to be told that she was not part of the old world anymore. Anything and anyone she had known outside the walls of this hospital had ceased to exist. She was part of the Atlanta Peacekeepers Society. Their words at first had been slightly reassuring because their mantra was finding the good in people. She guessed her biggest injury in getting hit by that car and taken from the man she loved was the blow to her heart. The man she loved. Yes, she had come to terms with that too. It wasn't long after she had arrived here that she had known that deep within her gut.

She had wanted to go find Daryl to bring him there and show him that there really were good people, although that kitchen conversation had left her to believe she had finally changed his mind. She knew that he was trying to tell her something else too and she thought she knew although she didn't want to be presumptuous. That he felt the same way she did. That he wanted a life with her as much as she wanted one with him. Besides, hadn't he said so? Hadn't he said that they could stay there at that funeral home for the rest of their lives?

Little did she know that they were not good people. They were just monsters too, just like the dead that roamed the earth. Just like the Governor and his men that had come and stolen their home from them; their life from them. She was wrong. There were no good people. Except for Daryl. But he was gone now. And now she was too. She was just gone from him and he was gone from her. They were gone from each other but most of all, Beth knew that she would never be the same without him.

The world had ended. The whole damn world had ended and she had met someone that she just knew in the depth of her soul was a good person. She knew Daryl Dixon was supposed to be _her_ good person. And now he was just gone.

**Well I know you guys have been waiting for this for a while now but I was waiting for my muse to reveal what Beth would have to say while she was separated from her true love. I think I have written this about forty times in my head and I have changed it on paper way too many times so I think I have gotten this as perfect as I can. Please let me know what you think. Of course next chapter will be Beth's point of view in finding Daryl. Beyond that, well, we shall see, right? They have a lot to figure out even after they admit their feelings. ;) **

**A lot of you have expressed that you would like to see this become more than just a one shot turned two shot and since now it has become a three shot I guess I have to make a decision. So…I guess I will try to do this fic justice and make it into a mini-fic. So there you have it; it's official. This one shot has officially turned into a regular story. Hope you like it, please let me know! Until next time, xoxoxoxo **


	4. Chapter 4

When Beth woke up that morning she didn't know it would be the day she would finally escape the hell in which she'd been held captive. The waking nightmare that never ended is how she had come to think of it. While she was there, at that hospital, assisting with some of the most gruesome and horrendous things she had ever seen done to humankind, she put it away. She did what she had once told Daryl to do once upon a yesterday. When they had burned down the past and risen from the ashes, renewed.

_You have to put it away…..or else it kills you. _

Beth knew for a fact that it would take more than the burning of one moonshine shack to purge the demons that plagued her mind. So she forced it away the best way she knew how. She would force herself to think of things like how big Jude would be when she saw her next. Then that opened her thoughts to other things like was she walking or was she talking. She thought of all the things she would teach her when she saw her again. She would show her the beauty of this world. She'd teach her about the bad too, but now, while she was still small she would show her the colors of the sky, the sounds of the birds. She'd teach her Irish folk songs and she'd teach her how to braid hair. That's how she would deal with it. She would use distractions of the mind to trick her brain into thinking that it was just another day. She would be back with them any time now. She told herself that every morning and she cried that prayer every night even if she no longer believed there was no one up there to listen, she prayed all the same. Just in case.

_We all got jobs to do. We don't get to be upset. _

But that morning when she and Arya had gone to laundry duty, it had become apparent that there was something wrong in their camp. Word traveled fast in a compound like this and Beth had discovered that no one was loyal to any one person. It was a true survival of the fittest.

All the girls in her sector looked up to her. She guessed they saw some of that Greene perseverance even if Beth didn't show it herself, it must have been evident in some part of her. They seemed to look to her for answers all the time. She had told them that she wanted to escape and they had latched onto the idea and to her immediately. They had a plan they said. They had carefully explained the whole thing to her and she had spent the next two weeks mapping a plan. But as it turned out it was not foolproof. They had been planning the escape through the laundry chutes, two people at a time before the guards found them to be missing. As much as she tried, she knew their plan was not going to work. They had not even thought as far as where they would go once they cleared the walls of the compound.

There had been a fight among the ranks and Beth had quickly lost her patience with them and inserted herself into the fight. It earned her a gash to her cheek, a pretty nasty one given that it was done with a homemade shank. Fortunately, she had been able to stop the fight and she had stared them down and spoken to them with a ferocity that would have made even Daryl Dixon proud. After that, they all looked up to her even more and word got around through all the sectors that Beth was someone they could count on. And somehow some way it had gotten around that if there was anyone that could get them out of this fucked up cult, it was her.

Beth had earned herself a nickname pretty quickly, the Sheriff. She thought it was funny and it reminded her of when things had been good at the prison. When Rick had just been a farmer, Carl had just been a kid, and she had been Jude's mom. And Daryl, well he had just been there; hovering on the outskirts of her mind. She knew now why it was that she had been drawn to him then. They were evidently on the same cobblestone path.

Rick had placed that hat on her head and told her "There's a new sheriff in town". At the time she had felt like a kid playing dress up. It did now too, but these people looked up to her so she pulled on every bit of strength she had and put one foot in front of the other.

But I made it.

But now the word was that Officer Bitch as Beth had come to call her was missing. No one had seen her since last watch. Beth for one was glad. She had received more than one stinging slap to the jaw courtesy of Officer Mendez. So if she was missing then it was one less thing for them to worry about. Their other leaders were on a run the past two days so that just left Officer Stupid and one they hadn't named yet to be in charge. Which left ample opportunity for her to hatch their escape plan. She was to try to get out with one other person if she could. They would have a better chance she knew if there were fewer to escape. The plan after that was to track her family and bring them back to free the people from this hell and put an end to the madness.

There may not be any good people left in this world but one thing was for sure, Beth was not going to stand by and let the bad happen without consequence. Not as long as she was breathing. She guessed her Daddy's sense of what was right and what was wrong stuck with her more than she thought. Beth thought sometimes she had grown up a little and been shaped by the women around her and it gave credence to that old adage, it takes a village to raise a child. She wondered if the same would hold true for Jude. She figured it would. Beth felt she maybe had gleaned a little of Michonne's fierceness, some of Carol's pluck, a little of Lori's persistence, some of Maggie's courage. She had woven their traits in with her own until she could identify with a sense of justice all her own.

Her last words to Arya had been to keep safe. She had gotten hung up in the elevator shaft, her foot getting stuck in one of the rungs on the way down the shaft. She hadn't wanted to leave her but she had no choice and Arya pleaded with her to leave. It brought back all too familiar memories of another time she had fled an area saying.

"_I'm not gonna leave you." _

She knew Arya would likely be sentenced to death and executed that evening. If Beth stayed, she would meet with a similar end or worse; she'd be slated for the next "experiment" and suffer a fate much worse than death as she was allowed to turn into one of the walking dead. Any time she thought of it, it sent her into a panic the likes of which she had never experienced. She couldn't stomach the thought of becoming one of them, just like Sean. Just like her mama. Just like so many others they had lost along the way.

Once she was free of the hospital she concentrated on clearing the grounds. After that she told herself she just had to get to the woods. Call it bizarre luck or fate or happenstance but Beth was just calling it divine intervention. She hadn't been able to reconcile it at first, seeing Carol and Tyreese outside the hospital scoping it out. They had been looking for her, following the cars with the crosses just like the one Beth would later learn carried her away from that funeral home, away from Daryl. She had been so relieved to see them and so intent on escaping with her life intact that they had not spoken to one another until some twenty minutes later. They spent what was left of that day and the entire night getting back to the base camp, an old run down church that looked like it had seen better days even before the end came.

Beth had been scared to ask and she guessed Carol sensed that. The older woman filled her in on everything that had happened since they had been separated. Carol kept stealing glances at her all the way back until Beth had finally asked her. "Do I look different or somethin'?" Beth meant no harm of the question. She was genuinely curious why Carol was studying her so intensely.

"Well, you do a little. I didn't mean to stare sweetheart. We're just happy to see you is all. Daryl is going to be glad to see you." Beth had looked up sharply then. She didn't know how to put into words the question that most plagued her mind. She wasn't even sure how to form the words. Beth decided that it would do her no good to ask about Daryl. Because knowing him, he had walled himself off again and it would take her weeks to get him to open up again. She hoped not but she had to be prepared for it, especially now that they were back with everyone again.

When they arrived at the church it was a non-stop reunion for the first fifteen minutes with plenty of tears shed along with ear-splitting smiles. She got to hug everyone and they hugged her back fiercely, Maggie most of all. Rick clung to her for a bit too and she held Jude until the little girl squirmed to get down. She let the tears fall freely as she watched her take a few steps, laughter mixing with the tears, a heady combination. Carl hugged her for a full five minutes and whispered the same sentiment that Carol had. "Daryl's gonna be so glad to see you." She pulled back and wished they were alone because she knew she could be straight with Carl. But after hugging everyone she was dying to know where he was.

"Where is Daryl?" They all turned to look at her then and just before Rick opened his mouth, Tyreese spoke up.

"Here he comes now. Looks like he got him something." Tyreese remarked. The sun was shining right in Beth's face so all she could make out was a shadow approaching the group. When he finally came into her full view and she blinked back her initial surprise and shock at seeing him again she was rooted to the spot for a moment. He looked as shell-shocked as she did.

She sees all of it. She sees the anguish that he felt when he called after that car in the dark. The lines on his face are a little deeper, his beard a bit grayer and it just makes him all the more endearing in her eyes. She sees him look to Carl who is smiling at him, much the way he smiled at her when she saw her. She steps away from the doorway to head towards him not able to wait another minute to touch him. Make sure he's real. Make sure that they are real. That what she thinks they have isn't something she imagined in a little girls' daydream. She hadn't been that little girl on the farm in a really long time now. He looks back at her again and then back at Carl.

As his eyes turn back towards her once more, she hears Carl say "You're not dreamin' this time Daryl. She's really here."

Suddenly she is standing right there in front of him. She used to imagine this moment a dozen different ways but what happens in reality rocks her to her core. He drops to his knees and buries his face in her abdomen. Something in her breaks in that moment and the tears come. All the ones she never cried in her own personal hell. She had never let herself. Because she had told him she didn't cry anymore once. She'd told him a lot of things. She also told him that she'd never leave him and then she did. So she never cried. Figured it was at least one promise to him that she could keep.

But now? The tears fell faster than she was breathing, hot, salty, cleansing. She brought her hands up from her sides and wove her fingers through his hair. It was longer and it needed washing but she relished in the fact that she could do this. Not only was he in front of her in tangible form but he was allowing her to touch him. Beth looks up to see that everyone had gone off on their own giving them much needed private time.

"Daryl." She breathes the name she wanted to say all this time. She has missed saying his name. Sure she'd told her friends back at the compound about him but she never called him by name. Arya was the only one that knew; had heard her on more than one occasion calling his name out in her sleep. In the dreams that plagued her, dreams of being ripped away from the only happiness that she had truly felt in a long time; maybe even ever.

He looks up at her then and they wander inside the church. He leads her over to the furthest wall in the church and she recognizes his pack and his poncho lying on the floor. They sit down and he turns to face her, speaking for the first time. "Are you okay?" His voice is as she remembered it, but somehow deeper, the tires on gravel sound just a bit more abrasive. She likes it. She figures she will always like everything about him.

"I'm okay, Daryl. It was hard. And you were right. About the good ones not surviving." She means it. She had been stupid to think that there were still good people out there. Or maybe she was jaded. Either way it didn't matter. It just was so.

Beth sees the look of sadness that passes over his face. "No I was wrong, Beth." He looks like he is struggling with something then and she has to fight the urge to pry it out of him. But if she had learned one thing about Daryl Dixon is that he would take when he was good and ready, not a minute before. Still she shakes her head. She needs him to know that he was right too. That she was wrong. She just needs him to know so much that suddenly there really do not seem to be enough hours in the day to tell him all the things that had been lying on her heart, just waiting to be released. She looks into his eyes and sees it there. It's the same look he gave her all those months ago when they had this very conversation. This time she meant for them to finish it. She is in awe as he brings his hands up to her face, the rough of his thumbs warm against the cool of her cheek. She unconsciously brings her hands up when she sees that he is shaking a bit, placing her palms over the back of his hands. Her heart bends a little more thinking that he is nervous and she feels it clench up with tenderness for this wonderful man. She closes her eyes, savoring the moment and when she opens them again she is almost surprised to see that he is still there in front of her.

"You asked me a question and I didn't get to answer ya," he said and she nodded for him to continue. He brings his hands down with hers and turns her hands into his, intertwining their fingers and resting them in his lap. She thinks how strange that it seems so natural for her hands to be resting in Daryl's lap.

He tilts his head to the side, looking at her through his bangs that are too long. "I took the easy way out. Tryin' to make you guess because I was too scared to say what I felt. But you changed my mind Beth." He looked up at her then and then back to their joined hands and back up at her. He disentangles their fingers and she is afraid for a moment that he is pulling away in his characteristic manner. But instead he reaches over and grabs his crossbow, pointing out some kind of marks that are on the deep grain wood there. As she takes it in her hand and runs her fingers over the marks, it becomes apparent that they are tally marks. "Fifty-seven? What does it mean?" She tilts her head, studying him curiously while awaiting his answer. He looks so absolutely sure of himself and it shocks her a bit. He is usually so reticent but about this, he is certain.

"Fifty seven marks. One for every day you weren't beside me." He said and then sighed deeply.

She looks at him, feeling very much like the deer caught in headlights. She can't believe he carved up his Strykyer. For her. It completely humbles her.

Before she even has time to register what he means he is speaking again. "You were right in something else too." She grins at him then. She knows. She knows that this is the point where things have taken a shift. Maybe it started at the moonshine shack. Maybe it continued when they were in that funeral home and all the stolen moment in between. The seed was planted then but it was taking root now; this tiny seedling love that she just knew was going to blossom into a full grown love that may threaten to topple them both but they'd weathered worse storms than that. They could handle it. They were meant to.

"I'm right twice in one day, Mr. Dixon?" She teases and they both laugh. She is pleased that he remembers her calling him that all those weeks ago. She been mad at the time but now it was like a little joke between them.

"Yes, Greene, stick around long enough and I'm sure I'll be tellin' you that again ". She looked up at him in surprise. She had thought once upon a time that she had Daryl Dixon figured out. But that was a different Daryl. This Daryl would take some getting used to. But she loved it. "If that's what you want."

Of all the ways she had thought if she was lucky enough that a relationship with Daryl would pan out, it was never that he'd readily admit that he felt something. Never that he would want something with her, something bigger than maybe what Glenn and Maggie had. She finds herself nodding at him unable to speak for a minute because this is more than she ever dreamed she'd get from him.

"Of course I do," she whispers it as she leans towards him and to her surprise, he meets her halfway and her heart does that thing again where it tries to chase itself. Their lips meet and his are warm and dry and he tastes good, an intoxicating mixture of smoke and salt of the earth. She feels him move the crossbow off his lap and she untucks her legs and drapes them over his lap. She tilts her head to give his mouth better access and her lips part of their own accord as she winds her hands up around his neck and touches the tip of her fingers to the hair at the nape of his neck. She is dizzy, her ears ringing and heart pounding and she knows now that weak in the knees feeling that all the books talk about. She is fiercely glad they are sitting because she knows with a certainty otherwise she'd be falling. She knew she was already falling but in a completely different sense. She was quite simply lost in the moment, lost in the kiss, lost in him. They finally are able to drag their lips apart and she leans her forehead on his. She whispers but her voice is not coming out like she wants. She is breathless from all the love that is spilling itself out of every pore of her body.

She tries again. "You were going to tell me I was right, remember?" Her voice is a little stronger and she can't keep the smug grin from creeping up on her lips.

"Yes ma'am, I was," He drawls. He waits a beat before he speaks. "I did miss you." He looks at her and she smiles at him.

"I know. I missed you too." Her reply is so easy. She knew it all along. She knew he'd miss her. She hadn't known how bad she would miss him. She meant to never find out again. She reaches over and pulls the bow back towards them, running her fingers over the marks again and then passing her fingertips over the battle-ready bolts. "I can't believe you carved up your bow."

"It was the only thing I could think of that I was takin' with me from place to place." Beth laughed at the grin that spread across his face. It looked good on him, smiling like that. She vowed to coax it out of him more often.

"Guess I shouldn't be surprised," she teased. "You don't go anywhere without it." She looked up at him now openly grinning at him, unable to hide her pleasure.

"Well now there's two things I'll never go anywhere without." He says and she just loves this new boldness about him. He is so much more confident and she wonders if she had anything to do with it or if it was something that was meant to come out in him long ago. He is so ruggedly handsome looking at her that it takes her breath away.

"What's the other thing?" she says and she feels such a peace wash over her then. That she is back with him. That she is back with all of them but mostly that she is in his arms, safe once more.

"It's you, Beth." He whispers it and her eyes are wide as he presses his lips to her forehead. "I don't ever want to be without you again. I love you." She closes her eyes, sweet relief washing over her and seeping into her very soul. She reaches up and curls her fingers around the collar of his jacket and skims them higher to weave through his hair, vowing that he will receive a hair cut one way or another in the very near future. She closes her eyes and presses her lips to his and he readily responds, her mouth met with a little more fervor and a promise of things to come.

She pulls away this time. She needs to tell him, can't believe she kissed him first before saying the most important thing on her heart. "I love you too, Daryl." She looks over to his bow then. "You'll never need to put another mark on it again." She can feel the tears coming again but she doesn't care. "You'll never need to because the only place I want to be is right next to you."

She sees it then, that look in his eyes and she can see that she has said just the right thing. She doesn't know how or why it happens that way with them. They just seem to have this deep hidden connection as if their souls were meant to be on this path. She had been terrified all that time without him but knowing that he had thought of her every day, every moment since she had been carried away in the night, it made it all the more bearable. It made it worth it. She was sorry for the trouble that she had seen, the lives that had been lost, for the dark cries in the night that haunted her still. But she couldn't be sorry for anything because she was here now and he loved her. And that was really all that mattered at the end of the day.

The world might have gone to hell. The dead may have risen to walk among the living. The stench of decay might lie about, ever present, threatening to make them wish they were decaying too. But she knew she didn't have to think that way anymore.

_Without hope, what's the point of living? _

It was worth it all. Every single thing they had gone through, together or apart, had brought them to this moment and she knew they would never take it back, not either of them, this fire and brimstone heat between them woven into a quilt of love. She figured it was true what they said. Out of ashes comes beauty. Forest fires could burn everything around them down to the core of the earth, leaving nothing behind but singed landscape lying in a cloud of soot and ash. But later, when the time was right, beauty emerged, greener, plusher, and more pure than ever before. That's what she and Daryl had, a pure, untainted kind of love. A love that would last beyond this world and possibly into the next. Their love was something good. In a world where no good was left, they could cling to that, cling to each other and find the redemption for two lost souls who'd finally found each other. Against all odds, they'd made it.

Well I finally managed to be able to tap into Beth again and hopefully I got this right. It was not easy. I want to thank the ladies of chat last night for letting me post a couple of snippets so I could get a read on where I was going with it. So Bethyl-Ghost-Chat peeps, my hat's off to ya!


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